Description du stage

Can you VLOOKUP in your sleep?
Do you know what a gerund is?
Are you the best Googler you know?

When you read a newspaper article, do you wonder if they are maybe kind of making things up?

If you said YES to at least 80% of the questions above, we need to talk!

The Data Collective, a new non-profit information service, needs your skills and passion for an unpaid internship. Go check it out datacollective.org.

The basic idea: Public data is impossible to use.

We're going to fix it.

In ten seconds, you can find out who was the guest star on "30 Rock" last week.

But how long does it take you to find historical charts and data for:
* income inequality
* government tax and spending
* global temperature trends

And do you trust the results once you find them?

Our ultimate goal: nudge public discourse in the direction of the facts.

We have a step-by-step plan to create a data hub where people will be able to easily browse the world's most interesting and relevant public data, see it, share it and discuss it.

Your job:
* Dig into datasets to answer interesting questions.
** For example: are people talking on the phone less these days? The New York Times says so: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/fashion/20Cultural.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB. But is it true?
** The American Time Use Survey from the Census Department can answer the question!
* Write articles and create charts describing your findings
* Discover interesting datasets and propose analyses & articles

The organization is in its earliest formative stage. This could turn into a paid job further down the road as the organization develops further.

You will work regularly with The Data Collective's founder, an expert in data analysis
and software engineering.

Free tip: check out OK Cupid's blog: http://blog.okcupid.com/ They have some really interesting data analysis derived from their database of how people behave on their dating site.

Please put the phrase DATA_RULES in the subject line of your application. It turns out that many job applicants use an automated spammer-bot or just don't read the job posts, so this will help prove that you are awesome!